It's All About the Chickens!

Blog Entry 7/30

My chickens arrived yesterday – 27 of them – a nice variety of brown layers. I put them in our trampoline box and put it in the coup I’d just finished, a converted storage shed. It’s pretty exciting for a city boy like me to make this foray into small farming. But I am catching some serious grief from my friends, especially my old friends. A lot of people just don’t get why I’m doing this, what chickens and farming could possibly have to do with following Jesus and this spiritual community I’m starting. So let me take a crack at answering that.

I believe that the earth really IS the Lord’s, like the psalm says. And I think that the closer we live to it, the more we touch it, the more we interact with it and acknowledge our dependence on it, the closer we are to the Creator, the deeper our spiritual connection. Our Native American brothers and sisters have understood this at a profound level for centuries. They see no separation between their Earth Mother and the Great Spirit, and the longer I live, neither can I. I am no longer able to understand, much less tolerate, those who would worship God on Sunday and pollute or disregard the Earth on Monday.

The vast majority of my 47 years on this planet have been lived with far too much distance – or at least perceived distance – between the Earth and me. I’ve grocery shopped for decades with little regard for where and how the food was produced or how far it traveled to get here or even how it was packaged. But I’ve learned that all those pieces have an impact on the world and all who inhabit it. I’ve learned that the “little” choices I make when I shop ARE theological decisions, manifestations of my faith, a part of my worship.

Which brings me back to my chickens and my foray into farming. I intend to love these chickens, to feed them organically, and to keep them interacting with the lush ground. Each egg I pull out of our hatchers will mean something to me and to the local folks who help consume them. We’ll know where they’ve come from and exactly how far they’ve traveled and what was and wasn’t used to produce them, and we’ll even take pride in the fact that they’re packaged in reused and reusable egg cartons. The same will be true of the fruits and vegetables we grow. All those who undertake this cooperative endeavor with us will devote their time, energy, and sweat to plowing, planting, watering, and harvesting, giving them a much deeper sense of connection to the earth as well. The shopping patterns of those in our spiritual community will be significantly altered, as will their environmental impact.

To me, farming IS a way to worship, a way to devote ourselves more fully to the gracious Creator and Provider without Whom nothing grows. I like the way Tony Jones puts it in his book The New Christians: “Most human activity is inherently theological, in that it reflects what we believe to be the case about God…The house I buy – where it is, how big it is, how much it costs – IS a theological decision. It reflects what I believe about the following questions and more: Does God care where I live? Does God care how I spend my money? Does God care about energy use? Does God favor public transportation? Maybe I believe that God cares about none of these things, in which case my decision to purchase the biggest house I can afford in the nicest part of town reflects my theological belief that God is not concerned with such things…So theology isn’t just talk…Virtually everything we do is inherently theological. Almost every choice we make reflects what we think about God. There’s no escaping it.” (The New Christians, Jossey Bass, pg. 106)

I’m hoping to assemble a community of folks here in Northern Michigan who get what Tony Jones is saying here, people who are tired of false divisions between sacred and secular, heaven and earth, Christians and non-Christians. Our farming enterprise will be just one dimension of our life together, but it will be a very important one with HUGE implications for the witness we bear to the One who created everything and called it “Good!”